Monday, February 1, 2010

Lx->

"Considering electronic music as a part of artistic avant-garde, Umberto Eco dedicated more attention to the subject in Apocallitici e integrati. This, his most influential work on mass culture, contains an entire chapter dedicated to music created and played with machines.According to Eco, the electronic generation of sound involves the creation of totally new musical material, destined to overcome tonality as the dominant expressive form. With electronics, it's not only possible escape from tonal system (based on predefined notes) but to build the sound in every detail, opening infinite posibilities, which were welcomed by advanced musicians who wanted to expand the sensory palate of an audience used to existing musical convention. Eco demonstrated the importance that audio tape recording has for both for the processing of "concrete" sounds as well as for the preservation of electronic experiments. This has a serious implication, as the apparent impossibility of notating these experiments -- which are often subject to chance -- tends to limit their life to the very tape upon which they were recorded. (Though it is helpful to mention that many modern digital recording tecniques now open up new possibilities.)"